Actor Manoj Bajpayee agitated with censor board

New Delhi: Actor Manoj Bajpayee commented that the concept of “censor board itself is a farce in a democracy” after the Central Board for Film Certification certified his forthcoming film “Aligarh” as ‘A’.

Directed by Hansal Mehta, “Aligarh” is a based on the real-life story of Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras, a professor at Aligarh Muslim University who was suspended from his job because he was gay.

Manoj, who is playing the professor’s role, says classifying films on the basis of age groups is okay, but there shouldn’t be interference with a director’s creative output.

“I do believe in the classification of movies, Like a film is for a 12-year-old and above or so. In that case, classifying is okay as that is how all cinema boards operate all over the world. But you cannot interfere with the creative output of the director,” Manoj said in an interview.

“Nobody gives you the right to interfere with somebody else’s right to freedom of expression. Five people cannot decide what millions and billions of people should or should not watch. The whole censor board itself is a farce in a democracy,” he added.

in India, homosexuality is a criminal offence as per Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

As a ray of hope for the LGBT community, the Supreme Court has decided to refer to a Constitution bench, a batch of curative petitions seeking a re-look at its earlier verdict upholding the validity of the law criminalizing homosexuality.

Touching upon the subject of homosexuality, the 46-year-old National Award winning actor said: “it’s a natural sexual preference” for a lot of people.

“Homosexuality is not something which is new. It is there since the inception of humankind and it is there in hundreds of species. World Health Organization (WHO) has found that it is a natural phenomenon, so as a society if we want to grow, we have to be inclusive. We cannot be criminalizing somebody just because he is different from us,” the actor said.

The actor expressing about hypocrisy we face said “There are too many hypocrites in this society. We are victims of hypocrisy. On one hand we worship goddesses, and on the other hand, we don’t give women their rights. You know, we have women harassment cases, we say we take care of our children and then there is child labour.”

“Likewise, it’s the society which is not ready to accept so many things on a public platform,” added Manoj, who is known for power-packed roles in films like “Shool”, “Satya” and “Pinjar”.

The actor is starring in the forthcoming film “Aligarh” playing the role of the professor. The film also stars Rajkummar Rao who plays a role of a journalist.

Manoj has also featured in a short film titled “Taandav”, and he hopes it “changes a lot in the short film segment” in the country.(IANS)(Image courtesy: Bollywoodcat.com)